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Art installations create portrait of America from faces of immigrants

Babak Houshmast, left, and Jahmad Balugo work on putting together a installation of portrait taken of people at Civic Center Park. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

Pop-up portrait galleries are cropping up around Denver, part of a new global art project by street artist JR to raise awareness about immigration reform.

The goal is to start a conversation about the 11 million people who are in this country illegally, using the faces and personal stories of immigrants and descendants of immigrants.

"People forget that almost everyone in America is a child of immigrants," said Chris Nyugen, 21, the son of Vietnamese refugees and who is a hospitality major at Boston University. Also, he interned this summer at the Grand Hyatt in Denver.

He was among the first to line up at the photo-booth truck in Civic Center park on Tuesday. At the end of the lunch hour, all photos had been been digitally uploaded and printed into huge posters that were pasted around the fountain at the Voorhies Memorial.

Allyson Mendenhall, who was downtown with her son, stopped to get her photo taken. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

The installation featured faces of Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants, a trio of Vietnamese-American cousins, and many Anglo Americans descended from immigrants in centuries past.

"Immigrants bring the best spirit and are very hard workers," said Katherine Nyugen, 26.

JR, who started the Inside Out Project after he won the 2011 TED Prize, has traveled from Nepal to Palestine, starting group actions on themes that range from gender-based violence to climate change. More than 120,000 portraits have been pasted in 108 countries.

This project, Inside Out/11M, has two photo-booth trucks — wrapped to look like cameras — working their way across the U.S.

In each city, the truck stops at an iconic site — like Civic Center in Denver — and a neighborhood where many immigrants live. The installations are left behind for the community. In Denver, photos were taken and installed at Civic Center and Su Teatro on Tuesday. The truck will move on to the History Colorado center, the Federal Indoor Flea Market and the Blair-Caldwell African-American Research Library.

"It's been very empowering for people to put their face to the issue," project coordinator Sarah Anthony said. "The undocumented, in particular, are taking the ability to say, 'I'm here.' "

The idea, she said, "is to humanize the statistics and put faces to the issue. It's a portrait of America."

One of the most compelling images taken Tuesday was a portrait of 4-year-old Lisette Montoya: She stares, dark-eyed and sleepy, into the camera while holding her blond, blue-eyed Barbie doll.

Her father, Eduardo, is a former community organizer in Denver who recently started his own business.

"I came to America when I was 1 year old and grew up as an undocumented person," said Montoya, who brought his family members along to be photographed because he wants to send a message to youths who are in the country illegally. "I want to tell them not to let that block them from achieving their dreams."

Hector Vargas, who emigrated from Guatemala, stood in the blazing sun at 2 p.m., holding the poster with his photo before it was pasted onto the installation.

Immigrants, he said, "are hard-working people who bring riches. It's explosive good for the country."